Appendix quarta: Oxoniensis editionis selectae in Cyprianum notae; J. M. Routh, notae; J. Trombelli, praefatio in Exhortationem ad poenitentiam

codices of Pamelius, nor in the Italian ones, nor in ours. And yet it is very sound, and does not teem with errors as much as Pamelius thought. Morel, then, printed clydomeni in this place, which we do not deny is faulty; indeed we judge true Pamelius's conjecture that clinomeni was written in the original. And this opinion seems all the more confirmed because it is agreed that among the Christians of that age the name of clinici was commonly a term of reproach, for those who, lying in bed, had received baptism by being sprinkled with water because of the imminent danger of death; as if not properly baptized, since they were sprinkled, not immersed; these are dealt with in Cyprian's Letter to Magnus. The Roman clergy, therefore, taking care even of these clinici, softens the harshness of the word and, with the ending altered, says κλινομένοις, not κλινικούς. With the same kindness Tertullian too, in the Apology, would not call Christians almost worn out by heavy old age clinici, but rather old men kept at home. As regards the authenticity of the Letter, besides the manuscripts of Latinius, which acknowledge it, it is found in one of the Bodleian ones. As regards the present word, the reading we adopt is the approved one; this is confirmed by the Letter of Cornelius to Fabius which we cited above, where on a quite similar occasion mention is made of χηρῶν καὶ θλιβομένων. That se exhibere means to supply oneself with what is necessary for life, we have shown at book 3, To Quirinus, chapter 61.

The catechumens ought not to be disappointed. Rigault says: For they heard this above all from the bishop or presbyter, that among Christians the greatest care is for charity or love; and they could complain that they had been deceived, if it had happened that they were abandoned in the very heat of persecution.

Letter 9.

To the presbyters and deacons of Rome. Rigault says: When the persecution that arose against the Christians under the emperor Decius had killed Fabian, head of the Roman Church, the Roman clergy sent a letter to Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, by Clementius the subdeacon, and informed him of the glorious end of Fabian. Soon, as the same scourge was raging through Africa, Cyprian, when he was already being demanded for the lion, withdrew, God so consenting; and he made nothing known to the Roman Church about his withdrawal. But afterwards the Carthaginian clergy, by a letter sent to the Roman, disclosed what course Cyprian had taken. And presently the Roman clergy wrote back to the Carthaginian that they were touched with no small grief that the shepherd, having abandoned his sheep, had sought hiding-places. This indeed is treated in the preceding Letter, which Pamelius testifies is owed to Morel, and which is the very one that Cyprian complained had come into his hands not without some suspicion of fraud, and which he sent back to Rome to the presbyters and deacons, so that they might examine whether it was that clerical [letter] of theirs which they had handed to Clementius to deliver. What the Romans wrote back, however, we do not have. This much only it is permissible to gather by conjecture, that the Romans acknowledged their Letter. But it so stung Cyprian's mind that he judged it necessary for him to write a letter to them, in which an account should be rendered both of his conduct and of his discipline and diligence. This indeed he performed in the Letter which in this (Oxford) edition is number 20.

Deacons. Rigault says: These inflections, diacones and diaconibus, are ancient. And yet they had the Apostle in their hands, in whom one reads διάκονοι and διακόνοις and διακόνους. And in the old Latin version, diaconi, diacones and diaconos. I do not know how it came about that they preferred to say diacones and diaconibus. Certainly they held the word for bishops in greater reverence. But those who said episcopae did not say diaconae, but diaconissae. Novel 3 of Justinian, as if in the epicene gender, has διακόνους ἄῤῥενας ἑκατὸν, τεσσαράκοντα δὲ θηλείας.

Since concerning the departure of the good man, my colleague. Rigault says that departure is death, which shortly afterwards is called consummation. Christians avoided the name of death as much as they could, because of the hope of the resurrection and of eternal life. And so instead of dead they said sent on before; and instead of death, decease and departure. And with a word drawn from the art of reckoning, the consummated and the consummation of years, of days,

and of the hours, gathered and reckoned up, as with the number of coins, into a final sum. Figures of this kind often occur in Tertullian.

"An honourable consummation has come about." Rigaltius says: "Fabian having been perfected by martyrdom at Rome." Eusebius 6.39. Rufinus: "Fabian having been crowned with martyrdom in the city of Rome."

"The memory of the one set over [us]." Rigaltius says: "Of Fabian, Bishop of Rome, whom the Roman clergy also calls 'the one set over' in the preceding Letter, and by the same name it also designates the other rulers of the Churches; Justin had said 'the one presiding' [proestōs]. Tertullian, in the Apology, [says] 'the president'. This is the Bishop, who is also called 'the high Priest' by the same Tertullian."

"I have read another letter as well." Rigaltius says: "I agree with Pamelius that it was nothing other than the second pages of the preceding Letter."

"In which [it was stated] neither who wrote it nor to whom it was written." Rigaltius says: "It must therefore be said that the title had been omitted in the authentic copy. This was perhaps the caution or prudence of the Romans amid the dangers of the Decian persecution."

"I have sent the same Letter back to you, the authentic one." Rigaltius says: "He calls it authentic, although he doubted its genuineness; but authentic nonetheless, since it was entirely the same as the one that had been brought by Clementius." On two counts this Letter is to be called clerical: because, namely, it was addressed by the Roman clergy to the Carthaginian [clergy]; and also, and chiefly, because it had been sent by a messenger initiated into holy orders. On the order of these Letters, consult the Annals for the year 250, § 8.

Letter 10.

"To the Martyrs and Confessors." Nicolas Faber notes that those were called confessors who, when questioned before judges, had confessed Christ; martyrs, those who had confessed Christ and, moreover, when tortured to make them deny [Him], persevered. All martyrs, therefore, were confessors, but confessors were not yet martyrs, except, as Tertullian elegantly calls them at the beginning of the book To the Martyrs, "designate", and elsewhere "candidates of martyrdom".

"Yet the confession [is] present." The persecution set on foot by the ordinary magistrates proceeded only as far as exile; the proconsul, on his arrival, added torments and death.

"I have learned that some have already been crowned." Who these were we learn from the Letter of Lucian: namely Bassus, Mappalicus, Fortunio, Paulus, Fortuna, Victorinus, Victor, Herennius, Credulus, Herena, Donatus, Firmus, Ventus, Fructus, Julia, Martialis, Aristo.

"With free voice": that with which they professed themselves Christians before the tribunal.

"Giving to believers as much as he who receives believes that he receives." So above, in the book To Donatus: "As much capacious faith as we bring, so much cleansing grace do we draw."

"God provides the contest." See what is found on this matter above, book 2, Against the Jews, chapter 9.

"He is continent in all things." Rigaltius says: Paul to the Corinthians, 1 [Cor. 9:25], "is temperate in all things"; and the Vulgate version: "abstains from all things." To which Priorius adds that he here compares the Christian contest with the contests of the gentiles, who carefully watched over the diet and training of boxers, on whom not every food but a "compulsory diet", as Aristotle calls it, was imposed. Their bread was called coliphium. They abstained, moreover, from all pleasures for the sake of bodily training, as Clement of Alexandria indicates in Stromata 3. Plato, Republic book 3, has the same: "This the other athletes also know, that one who is to have his body in good condition must abstain from all such things." By pleasures he means also harmful allurements. To these may be added what Tertullian has in the Exhortation to the Martyrs: "Athletes are set apart for a stricter discipline, so that they may devote themselves to building up strength; they are kept from luxury, from richer foods, from more pleasant drink," etc.

"Of my taking up." He reads "of [my] taking up" [analēpseōs]; in our manuscripts "of [my] departure" [analyseōs] occurs; see book 3, To Quirinus, chapter 16. Tertullian in the Scorpiace has: "The time of separation."

He laments the ruins and deaths of very many. Rigaltius says: So in the preceding letter: Among those lamenting the ruins. He speaks of the ruins of the lapsed brethren, whom torments cast down, and who through the cruelty of the torments had given incense to idols, or denied Christ. The ruins of the lapsed, the deaths of those who denied.

Peace should come upon [us]. Rigaltius says: Concerning which the father of the household, in the following Letter, had sent word through that anxious young man, in these words: Tell him to be free of care, because peace is going to come.

Leave having been received after glory. Rigaltius says: After the glory, that is, of an unimpaired will and of a glorious conscience, which makes us martyrs before God, even if through the indulgence of God Himself peace should come upon [us], unexpected and unhoped for, which may grant us leave to remain still in the world and in the Church, flourishing in praise, the world itself being now trodden underfoot. So elsewhere: if, peace having been received, leave is given by God; that is, if brethren in danger of death, after receiving peace from the Church, escape the danger by God's will, leave to live having been granted them by God, they nonetheless enjoy the peace which the Church had granted in view of approaching death. And in the book On Mortality: When one of our colleagues and fellow priests, worn out by infirmity and anxious about approaching death, was praying for leave for himself, that is, was asking God that it be granted him to remain still for some while among the living.

Should be crowned for glory. The glorious contest, that is, of temperance, chastity and piety in peace, of constancy, patience and faith in the encounter.

Letter 11.

Although I know. Rigaltius says: Augustine, book 4, On Baptism against the Donatists, mentions this letter with this title, To the clergy, on praying to God. This title he acknowledges as genuinely Cyprian's; and [he says that,] as though speaking to the clergy, he was addressing himself as well, transferring to himself, says Augustine, like holy Daniel, the sins of his people.

Renouncing the world with words alone and not with deeds. Augustine adds from the Epistle of Paul to Titus: For they profess that they know God, but in deeds they deny [Him]. Further, he cites this passage in the book On Faith and Works, last chapter, Letter 89. 9, 4, and also book 2 against Cresconius, chapter 15.

Torments without end of the torturer, without the outcome of condemnation, without the solace of death. Rigaltius says: Tertullian To the Martyrs, all the torturer's ingenuity in torments; Rufinus, in his version of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, book 6, where [he speaks] of the harassment of Origen under Decius: So that he was harassed with a thousand deaths, and yet not one which he longed for befell him, the persecutor managing this with the utmost zeal so that neither death should be granted nor the punishment cease. Eusebius had written only: the judge contentiously insisting with all his strength on by no means killing him. Pamelius rightly notes from this his indication of what time this Letter was written.

As long as they cast down. Until. Until.

Should have failed amid the tortures themselves. This reading I judge to be the most genuine; for he who has expired in torments is rightly said to have attained glory not by the end of punishment but by the swiftness of dying.

It was said in a vision. Rigaltius says: The sacred books of both libraries, namely the Mosaic and the Christian, supply examples of visions; for both the Patriarchs relate many things divinely revealed to them, and the Prophets relate them. Peter saw a huge vessel let down to him from heaven, and Paul saw what neither ear had ever heard nor eye seen. Then the Fathers of the Christian Church committed to writing many things signified to them in dreams. And Tertullian cites testimonies of visions more than once. So in this Decian harassment of the Christian people Cyprian does a thing most fitting for a bishop, who, while the storm rages, like a helmsman skilled in the stars, contemplates heaven and impresses on his passengers the commands given him from heaven, by a most effective manner of persuasion, a vision divinely offered to him and most apt to the business he was handling. This

vision, however, Epistle 16, where he speaks of ecstasy, will make clear to have come to him in sleep.

That they should ask for certain persons designated to them. Rigaltius says: This calls to mind some incident concerning the penance of certain of the lapsed, on which the votes of the brethren had been discordant.

According to the peace which the Lord has given us. Rigaltius says: He said to the Apostles in John 14:27: My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. For He was giving a mutual peace among His Apostles. So Chrysostom understood it: I give such [peace] that you are at peace with one another, which makes you stronger.

The brotherhood animated into one. With one accord.

He was carrying a net. Rigaltius says: this vision shows the devil in the equipment of a retiarius, who fought with a casting net and a trident or fork.

That he might catch the people standing round. Rigaltius says: The devil, the rival of Christ, catches men by tricks and deceits. But Christ said to the fishermen Simon and Andrew, intent on catching fish: Come, I will make you fishers of men. And in place of nets and dragnet He gave them the commandments of God the Father almighty, most effective for eternal salvation, so that by these precepts or commandments they might recover for life men deceived by the devil unto death.

That he might cover them with the cast of the net. Rigaltius says: Of a net thrown over, with a casting net, amphiblēstron, funda. Servius on that line of Virgil's Georgics, — now he lashes the river with the funda: Funda, he says, is a kind of net, so called from fundere (to pour out), that is, a casting net, which is called bolos. So when a retiarius was matched with a Thracian or a myrmillo or a secutor, the art of the contest was that the retiarius should draw in the net he had cast with such agility as to seize his adversary. That drawing-in or catching Tertullian called a sponge, in the book On the Shows: fixed on the bites of bears and the sponges of the retiarii.

That he might harass you. Of siniasai: he understood it in the common sense of the word, namely that it means to do evil, to harm; not, however, to shake, to sift, on which see Hesychius.

The Father both corrects us. That this is the genuine reading is urged by what follows, and holding firmly to His Christ: words which certainly fix what precedes as referring to the Father. The other reading, which has, likewise both corrects and protects us, looks back to what is said above about Jesus Christ our Lord and God: which does not fit at all.

Though set in very many sins. In the same sense Tertullian in the book On Penance calls himself a sinner of every brand.

Tell him, he says, to be untroubled, because peace is coming. Rigaltius says: So towards the end of the Epistle he says: Let us pray that peace be restored more speedily, that help come quickly to our hiding-places and dangers. He mentions this vision in Epistles 4 and 16. The father of the household addresses the young man who above appeared to Cyprian in sleep, anxious and somewhat sad. Tell him, that is, Cyprian.

No one looking back. Certain Greek copies too read the words in this order.

Lost what it had traversed. All that journey which it had traversed came to nothing. On this use of the word in Cyprian we have treated above.

Of the sick. Of the lapsed.

Let the penance of the lapsed be reformed. Rigaltius says: Let it not be accepted raw, premature and incomplete, or insufficiently sincere.

Epistle 12.

Be lacking to them for their care. Tertullian, To the Martyrs: I say nothing yet of the reward to which God invites the Martyrs. Meanwhile let us compare the very life of the world and of the prison, whether the spirit does not gain more in prison than the flesh loses; indeed, the flesh does not even lose what is due to it, through the care of the Church.

Note the days on which they depart. Tertullian, in the book On